Carnival Movie

LETTER TO WALTER WANGER's (' 15) PRODUCTION MANAGER MR. KEEFE

Mr. Dan KeefeWalter Wanger Productions, Inc.Hollywood, California

Dear Dan: After shipping you off on the New York train last night, Johnny Rand of the D. O. C. and I came back and had a great rehash of our unique week's work with you. So much had been done in six sixteen- hour days that our recollections were like what you'd call a photo-montage—a collection of candid shots of you and the twenty- odd other Walter-Wanger-workers—with no logical order or sequence, shooting everything from Main Street to Farmer Parker's ox team on Cemetery Hill in Norwich.

Otho Lovering, your director extraordinary, and Lowell ("Where-can-we-get-thirty-men") Farrell told me on their arrival last week that you fellows came here to get "background," true Dartmouth Carnival atmosphere on which to project Budd Schulberg's ('36) magnum opus when you get back to California. Well, you got it all right, and some to spare, what with an amazing jockeying of cameras, lights, trucks and curious people in the bedlam that is Hanover on a Carnival week-end. Now I know why movie men go mad, though pleasantly so.

Laying tracks down Main Street at high noon for moving sleds with cameras on them, grinding pictures from a handcar up and down the old Connecticut River Valley Line between perilously close train schedules, getting shots of a thousand boys and girls at a time, without having one of them wave ("hello, mama!") at the cameras, shooting outdoor evening and a dozen other events without a hitch, praying for weather and getting it on a silver platter,— all of it combined was an experience that neither Johnny Rand nor I would have passed up for a whole lot of anything.

My only regret was not seeing Bert Glennon, your ace cameraman, make his famous abortive attempts to ascend Oak Hill via the ski tow. Not being well versed in the vagaries of that insidious machine, he performed a perfect slapstick header, came up fighting just in time to be tapped on the head by the following hook, repeating the process ad lib until aid was summoned. I understand that Ray Binger, his colleague, got nice pictures of the proceedings.

All angles considered, the combined genius of your troupe in taking pictures of everything in the middle of Hanover's most hectic two days without once disrupting the stream of things was miraculous. The students were generally oblivious of the whole business, and in the few cases where their cooperation was needed, they helped out, partly from a natural interest in "moom pitchers" and because of the spirit of camaraderie and good fellowship which characterized all your men and colored all our relationships.

Frankly, when all this picture taking started, I was a little apprehensive lest Dartmouth might go Hollywood. But looking back over it, we who worked with you realize appreciatively that the reverse was true—Hollywood had gone Dartmouth in- stead. The readiness with which your troupe caught the spirit of the occasion was surprising and pleasing; you wanted to photograph Dartmouth as it really is, not as Hollywood would ordinarily build it, and you proceeded to do just that.

All good luck to you and your colleagues. If (as is your intention and that of Mr. Wanger) you release the first college motion picture which is the cinematic portrayal of a plausible, significant play of real people in a real college setting, minus coonskins, co-eds, paddles and rah-rah, you'll have done both Dartmouth and yourselves a favor—not to mention the public. Hope you'll come again and stay longer!

ON LOCATION WITHOUT BENEFIT OF HOLLYWOOD CLIMATE Part of the 30-man crew that covered Carnival with cameras for Movie Producer WalterWanger '15, in making background scenes for the proposed feature picture "Winter Carnival." Shown above are cameramen and at right, in ski cap, Otho Lovering, director, andLawrence Farrell (extreme right), assistant director. The troupe from Hollywood wasguided and assisted by John Rand '37, for the D. O. C., and Davis Jackson '36, for theadministration. The help of both men and cooperation of students and Outing Club, theWanger crew said, was "terrific."